Archive for the ‘Vacaciones’ Category

Incredibly, i’ve not posted this Vacaciones song before. I thought i’d exhausted everything and by now any new song of theirs would be one of their lesser style explorations, but here, Volverás, is one of their best. I listened to them on a very long train/bus/train ride home last night in an effort to make myself feel good and it worked. Although whatever i offer comes through random, subconscious means, now that this song came up i’m posting it as well to maybe make you feel good.

I never noticed this before, but Ruth’s vocals on sound really croaky and tired. It’s probably best that i didn’t notice it, because now i will always notice it. This is one of the shorter songs on Emmaboda and is all the better for it. I think it may have been the single of it, or as much of a single as this world allows. The esteemed, loo-at-us song. They even made a video for it. It’s not that exciting.

I’ll have posted the whole album on here soon enough, even filler songs like this one. This is a very slight song. However, unlike the other songs on the album that are beautiful in their slightness, boiled down to a perfect essence, this song is a nothing idea in style experimentation that goes nowhere. Except to “do do do do-do…” etc. Thankfully it’s short, but all the songs on Sonreir are short.

Alright. Every Vacaciones song i have had in my head until now has been from their first album Sonreir, and finally here is one from their follow up. It’s hard not to use this for demonstration purposes as to why that album is a little disappointing. You can see the difference. These songs are just as fantastic as they always were, it’s just the economy is gone, the youth abandoned, the orthodox comes in, the punk goes out. And that is important. I’m sure a lot of people would prefer this Vacaciones to the earlier. This album probably sold a lot more copies and brought Vacaciones to higher levels of fame than their first. Not loser, prefers his songs 2-3 times shorter me.

Every Vacaciones song i’ve posed bar one has been from Sonreir, and that one was a cover. It figures. It probably is one of my favourite albums of all time, but that favour has come at the expense of everything else they have done, including their other album Emmaboda. I heard it and in some reactive, comparative distaste i don’t think i’ve listened to it all the way through more than once. It no doubt is perfectly fine – great even. Just not as great as Sonreir. The songs are longer, the band sounds older, something has been lost. But i’m sure not too much. Sonreir is just so good and captures Vacaciones at just their right time. It’s hard to tear myself from it. Here’s a song from it. The first.

Another song that has come up before and will certainly come up again. There’s an advantage with this song as there’s more than one version, so i can pretend i’m adding something of value by posting another Espero Una Respuesta, the only talking point being that it’s slightly different. It was the EP version last time, so here’s the album version. The lesser of the two in my opinion, because it doesn’t kick off with an additional “Sin darme cuenta!” nor has the drum roll and keyboard slide that follows it. It’s two seconds of the song, probably extracted for the sake of album flow, but man is its absence ever felt.

Not all of them can be hits. I believe this the definition of album filler, which is sad because if Vacaciones decided somewhere along the line to omit it completely any difference it would have made would be a positive one. It fills nothing. It is more an album obstruction. I mean, it’s a good song and all – and here, isolated, it sounds the best i’ve ever heard it – but where it is, sandwiched between the bliss of Volverás and Unas Veces Sí Y Otras No, it is nothing but a letdown, a stumbling.